TL:DR: The Genesis Question part thirty-four

Hi, Everybody!

21 September 14

Hi Troy & Mia; David & Marie:

I keep forgetting about the "nuggets" of Truth is the "lesser Prophets" once you get past the major prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekeiel.  In this morning's Torah reading, there's what I read as a reference to the Synoptic Jesus and the Johannine Jesus in Zechariah 4:14

Then said he, These the two [anointed ones/sons of oil] that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.

Ezekiel 35:

Moreover the word of the YHWH came unto me, saying:

Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophecy against it,

According to my NEW BIBLE DICTIONARY, "Seir:  The word seir defines a mountain, a land and a people in the general area of old Edom.  Esau went to live there and his descendants overcame the original inhabitants, the Horites.  The Simeonites later destroyed some Amalakites  who took refuge there."

This would appear to be the beginning -- or attempted beginning -- of a "deal-breaker" argument between the YHWH and God. Esau was the elder brother whose place was usurped by the younger brother, Jacob -- the perceived relationship between God and YHWH (on the part of the YHWH).  It's technically true only insofar as God is the elder being and the YHWH the younger being.  But, as I read Scripture, God is the creator of the YHWH, not the YHWH's elder brother or father or any kind of relation. 

So, what the YHWH APPEARS to be doing is telling Ezekiel to prophecy against what the YHWH perceives to be God's sanctuary that God retreated to when the YHWH proxy, Joseph, usurped God's proxy's -- Esau's -- birthright and blessing. 

And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, O mount Seir I against thee, and I will stretch out my hand against thee and I will make thee desolation and desolation.

Again,  God is attempting to maintain a consensus between the two of them here at the apex of the Judaic Revelation.  Which isn't difficult.  God sets His own Face against Mount Seir, but sets His Face against it AS a mountain: as one of the many physical aspects of the YHWH.  Virtually any part of the earth or physical configuration of the earth IS the YHWH.  The Hebrew phrase, "desolation and desolation" suits this expression: Mount Seir as a geopolitical presence will be "desolation" but so will Mount Seir as an aspect of the YHWH be a "desolation".  With an implied succession: desolation and desolation ETCETERA up to and including the YHWH.

I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate and thou shalt know that I, the YHWH.

The rejoinder, it seems to me, calls to mind the even earlier God/YHWH proxies, Cain and Hebel.  It was Cain, the older brother, who murdered the younger brother, Hebel and was cast out from the face of the earth (i.e. the YHWH) and was therefore forced to found cities as a means of providing for himself and his family since agriculture was out of the question. 

[I hate having to go through all this again, but, in my view, Cain definitely got a raw deal.  He basically got caught in a "womankind" pinch: the YHWH inferring that the relationship between Cain and Hebel was the same as the relationship between Adam and Chauah (the latter in Genesis 3:16 "and thy desire subject to thy husband and he shall rule over thee" and the former in Genesis 4:7 "And unto thee his desire and thou shalt rule over him").  This was the subject of the conversation in Genesis 4:8 "And Cain talked with Hebel is brother: and it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Hebel his brother and slew him." Basically Hebel wanted to be Cain's wife so Cain killed him.  This, as I read it, was the idea behind Cain's response to the YHWH's question, "Where is Hebel thy brother?" "I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?"  Basically what he was saying was "My brother turned out to be some kind of weird animal, thinking he was going to be my wife.  I had no interest in being the keeper of an animal like that, let alone his wife." 

It's an example of the he/she/it nature of the YHWH that he/she/it was unable to see that a man -- a REAL man -- doesn't want to marry another man.  That the very concept is loathsome and animalistic and bestial: enough to incite a murderous impulse.  There is nothing lower, conceptually, than a younger brother suggesting to an older brother that they should get married. Which, I'm pretty sure is what Hebel suggested.  That's why, personally, I draw a sharp distinction between "mankind" -- men who are men and women who are women but inclusive of both as a species -- and "womankind" which is that weird "men and women are the same and so are homosexuals and transsexuals and bisexuals and bi-curious, etc. etc. etc."  They WANT that to include men but it doesn't.  Not men as I understand the term.  Just women and "weird animals".  He/she/it.  The YHWH, Baal, Isis, etc.] 

God catches the intricate reference and makes his own intricate reference to it:

Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred and hast poured out the children of Israel by the hands of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that iniquity an end:

Basically, God moves the discussion back from Cain and Hebel to the expulsion of Adam from the Garden of Eden by the YHWH -- which was another "womankind" act -- and references Genesis 3:24 "So he [YHWH God] drove out the man: and he placed at the East of the garden of Eden, Cherubims, and flaming sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."  "The hands of the sword", I'm pretty sure, refers to the flaming sword which kept men expelled from the Garden and destroyed any man who attempted to enter but allowed women to live and to pass out and return into the Garden -- and, presumably, "womankind": homosexuals, bisexuals, transgendered, etc. 

Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee; since thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee.

God, of course, in His omniscience, was fully aware that when the YHWH said "What hast thou done?  The voice of thy brother's bloods cryeth unto me from the ground." in Genesis 4:10 that, while the YHWH was, ostensibly -- and I'm pretty sure ONLY ostensibly -- anguishing about Hebel's bloods, the YHWH, as the physically incarnated earth was drinking that same blood and relishing it.

God is basically reminding the YHWH of this central reality.  "Since thou hast not hated blood" but, rather, relished drinking blood, Cain's avowal of redress stands -- as expressed through his descendant, Lamech in Genesis 4:23-24:

And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I would slay a man in my wound and a young man in my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged seven fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven fold. 

What he's saying is that, even seven generations later, even seventy-seven generations later, he would do the same thing:  if his younger brother proposed that the two of them mate and marry, he would slay him because of the "wound" and "hurt" that would entail. 

What God is telling the YHWH is that that avowal still stands and the blood of Hebel is going, at some point, to be required of the YHWH since it was the YHWH's fault that Hebel propositioned his brother.  "In the time that iniquity an end".  Of course to the YHWH -- and to "womankind" -- there is no such thing as an end to that, because he/she/it doesn't conceive of it as an iniquity.  As we can see in our own society, things are going to have to get a LOT worse before they start getting remotely better.  We're going in the wrong direction: away from "mankind" and God and toward "womankind" and the YHWH.     

Thus will I make mount Seir desolation and desolation, and cut off from it him that passeth out & him that returneth

"him that passeth out and him that returneth":  that is males who are part of "womankind" and consequently wouldn't be kept out of the Garden of Eden by "the flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life." 

The YHWH answers with his/her/its own avowal and threat:

And I will fill his mountains with his slain men: in thy hills and in thy valleys and in all thy rivers shall they fall that are slain with the sword. 

I will make thee perpetual desolations & thy cities shall not return and ye shall know that I the YHWH

That is, the YHWH is returning to the concept of the original Edom as a retreat for the defeated God-proxy, Esau.  The reference to rivers is directed against God's chosen medium, water.  "And thy cities shall not return" -- that is, the cities that Cain was forced to found when he was "cursed from the earth" (4:11) "When thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength" (4:12).

Because thou hast said These two nations and these two countries shall be mine and we will possess it, [whereas/though] the YHWH was there:

That is, the YHWH is responding that not only is God claiming dominion over Mount Seir, Edom, to where His proxy retreated, but is also laying claim to Jerusalem, the Promised Land, the Garden of Eden (today called the West Bank) "whereas/though the YHWH was there".  Well, yes, definitely.  Everything is God's.  God created everything:  the Garden of Eden, Jerusalem, the YHWH, Mount Seir, all of it:

Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD, I will even do according to thine anger and according to thine envy, which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them: and I will make My Self known amongst them, when I have judged thee.

A simple statement of inescapable fact:  the YHWH will be judged even as all of God's sentient creations will be judged.

Which compels the YHWH to engage in some futile sabre-rattling:

And thou shalt know that I am the YHWH, I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying they are laid desolate, they are given us to devour.

The next verse you can picture God and the YHWH saying in unison:

Thus with your mouth ye have [boasted/magnified] against me, & have multiplied your words against me, I have heard.

To which God adds, definitively:

Thus saith the Lord GOD: when the whole earth rejoyceth I will make thee desolate.

Another simple statement of fact:  even if the YHWH -- as seems very unlikely -- is able at some point to unite all of his/her/its disparate factions and lesser and greater YHWHs so that they are all, simultaneously, rejoicing, God will make them all desolate. It's not an issue of unanimity, it's an issue of Reality.  

The YHWH gets the last word (such as it is) in Chapter 35:

As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir and all Idumea, all of it, and they shall know that I, the YHWH. 

On to chapter 36 next week, God willing.

Best,

Dave

Next Time: It's New Year's Eve, so Seiler dressed as Baby New Year? (Last "Past" Matt! of the year!!!)